The Dark I Know Well
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: Death is a gentle gift of a merciful god, and the god is Sakura, or so she likes to think. Because it's Konoha and it's not beneath them to order someone killed in their sleep.


**Title: **The Dark I Know Well

**Rating: **T  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>general

**Characters**: Sakura; Itachi  
><strong>Summary: <strong> Death is a gentle gift of a merciful god, and the god is Sakura, or so she likes to think. Beacause it's Konoha and it's not beneath them to order someone killed in their sleep.

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author Note:** Written for Stormdragon666's Halloween challenge. Please review.

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

She breathes the dark in like moist velvet, and moonlight dances on her skin like raindrops. The shadows become her clothes, silence becomes her voice, and right then and there she is a goddess and death is what she bestows upon the rotten mortals.

**Assassinate Uchiha Itachi.**

Because if killing one brother is the price of getting the other, and Konoha is desperate for the Sharingan, then so be it.

The medic

_-no, medics lay vows to never kill, and she kills, she does_

_So much, so much, the blood on her healing fingers-_

Creeps through the glass night, and cuts herself on the edges of concentration. The house is big, and dark, and silent. One of the many Akatsuki hideouts, more a mansion than anything, and there's only one person

_-except he's not because shinobi aren't people, and he's the best of them_

_ Them, sanity rejects, social outcasts, them murderers-_

In there right now.

On she goes, a pink haired girl

_-but she's not a girl right now, because girls don't do what she does;_

_ There will be too much blood on her clothes tomorrow-_

On, and on, past a marble floor, of a ballroom, through thickly rugged halls, with portraits, on, and on

-_only one locked door in a house with a hundred empty rooms_

_ The fairytales have it all wrong-_

She can feel it there, right on the edge, a wheezing, soft breathing that sounds like that of a deathbed patient in the hospital

_-and he's on his deathbed, a breathing corpse_

_ And he's the only one who knows that he knows-_

Sakura shuts her eyes and focuses on the chakra presence

_-Weak, tortured, barely there, a distinguished flame of a burned out candle-_

And she moves steadily towards the door, and she picks the locked silently, with quick porcelain fingers, and her nails bleed from the effort of doing it all quick and efficient

_-because if dawn comes, the spell will break, and the sun will burn_

_And daylight has nothing to do with what /whowhowho/ she kills at night-_

The doors gives out a surprisingly loud click, and Sakura is instantly on alert. The seconds trickle by, with nightmarish speed, slowly, slowly, like the drops of sweat at the back of her neck. But the tired breathing never hitches, and red eyes don't stare at her from the darkness, so she enters bravely, still on edge, still alert

_-every creak of a floorboard can mean her death_

_ And his life, but such thoughts are forbidden-_

He's on the bed, and she's disappointed because she expected posh crimson silk and black velvet, but he sleeps in soft white cotton, and his skin

_-like candle wax, stretched out over sharp cheekbones_

_ The skin of a sick man, the skin of a dead man-_

Looks ashen compared to the whiteness. His hair

_-long and silky, and black like a raven's wing_

_ And probably just as soft-_

Is splayed over the pillow like a puddle of liquid night.

The killer

_-goddess, goddess of death, not a killer, a goddess_

_ Of silent tears and gentle mercy-_

Fingers her scalpel, and wonders how blood will look on that

_-Stretched, abused, scarred-_

Skin. No. instead she touches a pillow. It's soft, like a mother's kiss, like a lover's caress. She takes it in her hands

_-he deserves a gentle touch in his death because_

_ The sharp cold blade has been following him all life-_

And she presses it over his face

_-so tired, so worn out, and he's not much older than her,_

_But he's a veteran none the less, and she's a child-_

And she listens to his breathing, which is just barely there, anyway, slowly disappear. Thin hands with wrists that she can snap in two if she wanted, and long bony fingers

_-oh, how beautiful those hands might have been, _

_ But they're scarred and callused-_

Twist in the sheets, and grapple desperately, and

_-what does he want anyway? A final touch?_

_ Comfort, a kiss? Who does he think he is, the nerve?-_

Then they go slack and fall on the white

_-Too white, too clean, like a hospital, where people die-_

Sheets. He's dead, because he's not breathing, and she saw the chakra

_-so little, so faint-_

leave the body, which is way too thin, and he's way too skinny, and she saw the skin peel off his pearl white bones, and she saw the worms of corruption gnaw a blackened heart, and she saw charred lungs full of caverns, and a charcoal conscience.

She's scared of pulling the pillow off his face

_-because his eyes will be open, and accusing_

_ But he has no right to complain because he's a killer also-_

But she does it anyway, and his eyes are closed, not like she expected. His face isn't relaxed, he still looks tired, worn out, trashed over by life, and the lines on his withered skin seem deeper, his dry thin lips, are pressed together, a final refusal to beg, and he looks

_-so young, yet so old, so jaded, and so corrupted_

_ And sad, sad, sad, sad-_

Kind of pitiful, barely twenty, killed in his sleep, by a teenager, alone, and not to be missed by anyone. Sakura thinks it's only fair that she lets a tear fall, because even murderers deserve one for them, and maybe if she doesn't cry for that one, no one will cry for her?

The night

_-long, nightmarish, filled with the cloying scent of death_

_ A rotten piece of shriveled darkness-_

Will end soon and she has to go, and so she turns to leave, and spares him one last look, a look for someone sad and alone, and harsh, for someone evil, and lonely, a victim of corruption. She looks at his old young tired face

_-and, Kami, he must've been handsome once, he must've been so beautiful_

_ Before the ebony decay of his own soul-_

And she thins that if all things had been different, maybe she would've loved him, and not Sasuke.

But Itachi is

_-Perfect, and flawed and full of fatal faults-_

Dead, and it doesn't matter anyway, because he's

_-Not the love of her life_-

Just another killer that needed to be stopped.

**Mission Accomplished.**


End file.
